#194: Drive | How to Say No to Your CEO with Natalie Marcotullio, Head of Growth and Operations at Navattic
Description
This episode is from Drive 2024, our first-ever in-person event for B2B marketers in Burlington, Vermont. Natalie Marcotullio, Head of Growth and Operations at Navattic, shared strategies on how to say “no” when faced with competing priorities in marketing.
Natalie covers:
- How to establish a marketing framework that simplifies decision-making and helps you say no effectively.
- A three-step process for communicating priorities with your CEO and leadership team.
- Quick-win productivity hacks that offer simple ways to say “no.”
Timestamps
- (00:00 ) - - Intro to Natalie
- (05:24 ) - - The “stress spiral” at work
- (07:16 ) - - How to stop the stress spiral and decide what’s most important to work on
- (09:13 ) - - Natalie’s marketing framework: Unique + Valuable
- (10:21 ) - - Examples of creating a unique and valuable marketing framework
- (12:11 ) - - Why having a framework works
- (14:58 ) - - Step #1 of saying “No”: Ask the Why
- (18:35 ) - - Step #2 of saying “No”: Swap it out
- (20:41 ) - - Step #3 of saying “No”: "Let’s experiment with it"
- (23:35 ) - - Small ways to say “No”
- (29:44 ) - - Natalie’s weirdest ask she’s received (and had to say no to)
- (30:46 ) - - How to know you need to get better at saying no
- (31:44 ) - - Giving context and rationale when saying yes
- (32:34 ) - - How to get your team to think with a marketing mindset and actively bring ideas to you
- (33:42 ) - - Teaching the “yes/no” framework: How does it play out when your team uses your own tricks on you?
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Today's episode brought to you by Navattic.
B2B websites are filled with too much story, too much narrative these days. You visit a website and you have no idea what the product does and how it works.
This is why Navattic has become a popular product for B2B Marketers. They help you build interactive demos so you can give buyers a real look at the product before they ever talk to sales.
And guess what - it works. They found that companies using interactive demos with Navattic have seen up to a 25% lift in website conversion rates and a 10-20% increase in inbound leads.
They just released their 2025 State of the Interactive Product Demo report, and it proves just how much more control B2B buyers want over the buying process. Buyers have more access to information than ever, and companies are finally catching up by making their product front and center.
Their report breaks down the top-performing demos, why ungated demos drive higher engagement and the best use cases and strategies for making them work.
So if you want to learn more about using product demos on your site, go check out Navattic’s State of the Interactive Product Demo report now.
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